So year by year, day by day, I was servant to pain, Fashioned again to a use and a purpose of man, I was a blade of Damascus. The swift flashings ran I was a scourge and a passion of ruthless dismay, Or in the chance and the change of the mutable years I was the promise of freedom that burned through men's fears. Now on a cushion of silk for the gazers to see I shall be idle forever; new worships may be, Born of new hopes and new strivings, but never again Up to the stars shall I light the aspirings of men. Out of earth's hungry ambitions new serfdoms may come; Never again shall I chain the slave's agony dumb. Truths shall have birth in the flashings of battle-swung brand; Never again shall the hero hold me in his hand. Idle forever, no memories more to amass, Food for the thoughts of the happy who see me and pass, I can but know that they dig the new ore from the hills, Strings that make music when thousands are silent for awe, N Ο more fascinating "Romance of Trade" exists than the efforts of an army of adventurers in the waste places, charged with the annual fur production of the world, which now amounts to $25,000,000. Here is the oldest industry known to man, and one beyond the reach of any trust, since any lonely trapper can throw his pelts on the market at his own price. I will remark in passing that the fur hunters have probably done more worldexploring than any other travelers. It was the little beaver that lured men from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi, and thence to the Rockies. Again it was the sable that led the tribesmen of Asiatic Russia across to far Kamchatka; and the big sea otter lured the Spanish and the English, with Russians and Americans, all round the world in crazy craft, exploring our Pacific coast from Alaska to California. Today Canada alone produces over $3,000,000 worth of furs every year; and to this Alaska now adds $750,000 of raw pelts, and Labrador probably half this amount. Until a decade or so ago the Prybiloffs and other seal islands sent out $2,500,000 worth of skins annually; and then of course we have the enormous quantities dressed and manufactured for the home markets. The woman who buys a coat of sable or seal, mink or chinchilla, probably little dreams that her dainty furs represent more adventure and strange happenings than any other article of personal or household adornment. Take "The Company of Adventurers Trading into Hudson Bay," that unique corporation which for two hundred and forty years held sway over territory equal in area to the whole of Europe. It was in 1670 that the Frenchman Groseilier fired Prince Rupert's imagination with tales of Arctic territory filled with precious ermine and sables, beavers and bears, and rare foxes. A little company was formed with a capital of $50,000, and on this slender capital the far famed Hudson Bay Company began operations. A couple of centuries |